The Tape Project is alive and kickin'. Please bear in mind that I'm just a fellow member here and can't speak for the management but I think I can allay your concerns. It can take quite a while until you receive your first tape. Since each one is made for you and no one else there isn't any stock of tapes that the guys can just go over and pull off the shelf. Another difference is from your typical media providers is that only 4 tapes can be made at a time of the same release. And since each release consists of 2 tapes all produced in real time it probably takes a few hours to make 4 tapes. So, obviously it's impractical to produce 1 tape since it would still require the entire duplication line and still take the same amount of time.
There are two different types of production runs. In the beginning there was only one kind as the guys produced which ever was next in the catalog. These primary runs started out with the first release, Jacqui Naylor and then BlackJack David. There were only a handful of subscribers during these early releases and as the number of subscribers grew it was not that tough to go back and do a catch up run of the Naylor tapes. I don't think there was really a need at that point to be that organized about scheduling the duplication line since the number of tapes that needed to be produced was pretty low and there were only a couple set ups of the dup line for each release.
As you can imagine when these primary runs grew, with over 100 subscribers, into a major deal. With a very little problem we're talking about 2-3 hundred hours just to produce the tapes. Each reel is individually numbered on a CNC machine. Then it needs to be packaged with the individually number artwork packed up and shipped.
Ok, this would seem pretty straight forward and it is until you throw new subscribers into the mix. Like I said, when it was just a few releases the guys could just go by "the seat of their pants" as to when it was time to go back and produce some more of the earlier titles. But the more titles there are to produce and the more new subscribers (actual tapes) there are, the longer it takes to do these catch up runs. This delays the release of the next title in line for continuing subscribers. So, now that we have 9 titles that could be waiting for these catch up runs (and god knows how many of these tapes need to be produced since there are far more subscribers that need catch up tapes than not) these runs now need to be scheduled to keep the new titles from having 6 month delays between releases.
Add to this that producing one tape would increase the lag time and further complicate matters you'll also see a delay from the time that you order until the other 3 (or however many) new subscribers that need to fill out a run.
As you can see, this has become a pretty complicated production scheduling issue and many decisions have to be made all along the line. You can be assured that the very highest quality will weigh heavily in all these decisions.
Unlike any other music release I've ever known of, the Tape Project is dedicated to producing the best musical experience possible. And while that copy can be seen from lots of other companies, I think that these tapes will be considered to have actually lived up to the title " The Best" two hundred years from now.
